Generational Divides Among Marijuana Users
Imagine getting into a fender bender with the company car and calling yourself an example of “responsible drinking.” Cyd Maurer had a fender bender while working for a TV Station in Eugene, Oregon. Her company called for drug testing. After it was found that she had THC metabolites, the 25-year-old was fired. She has put out video claiming that she is an example of “responsible marijuana use.” Isn’t it ironic? In other words, getting into an accident in the company car is not a problem for her employer. Will she pay for the car repair, or will she be covering the rise in the station’s insurance premium, as a responsible person would do?
![cydmaurer](https://poppot.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cydmaurer-300x197.jpg)
Cyd Maurer was lucky that her goofy accident did not cause major damage. A Conrail train engineer in 1987 was high on marijuana when he caused a collision in Chase, Maryland, that killed 16 people. The freight train hit an Amtrak passenger train. If it were not for the heroic efforts of the other train’s engineer, who was sober, many more people would have died. The Conrail engineer was interviewed about his impairment. After spending 4 years in jail and going to rehab, he said, “If the joint hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been so inattentive. I feel it was pretty much exclusively the marijuana — the marijuana and the disease of addiction.” (The Amtrak engineer who saved so many people lost his life.)
Cyd Maurer is now fighting against what she calls cannabigotry. Joining her in the fight is a Charlo Green, a TV anchor from Alaska who quit her anchor job to work on legalization effort in Alaska and wanted to go out “with a bang.”
420 Versus 710: Weed Versus Dabs
Back in the 1970s or 1980s, a 25-year old marijuana user who got into an accident on the job probably would have realized their own role in the crash. A generational divide is coming between traditional middle-aged marijuana users who smoke it, and the younger generation which prefers dabs. Russ Belville, pro-pot advocate in Portland complains of seeing a group gathered around a young man doing dabs a public park. “The visual was a little jarring. Seven young people, odds-on that most weren’t even 21 years old, staring at one guy using a hand-held blow torch just two feet away from parched yellow dry grass in the middle of a public place while Portland chokes on the smoke from raging wildfires.”
Belville asks, “Could parents who have some familiarity with smoking a joint be scandalized by the sight of kids with dab rigs and blowtorches, and then led to oppose or severely restrict legalization?” He adds, that “the occasional nightly news story of motel rooms and apartments blown up from faulty cannabis extraction techniques isn’t winning any voters to our side.” Will marijuana dabs spark next generation of Parents’ Movement?
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